The Early Years
by Oregano
Summary: A collection of (almost random) one-parters, set in the days of Season Two, pre-Rory-and-Jess era. He just loves sticking it to her, and she somehow fights back.
1. The Boy To Her Right

**The Boy To Her Right **by Oregano

"What's wrong with you?"

The question was delivered so lazily, so boredly, that it didn't really sound like he cared about her answer at all. She squinted her eyes up at him, screwing her mouth at the same time. He towered over her, his hands in his pockets once again. The truth was, she had been sitting on the sidewalk for quite a while now, and the bones in her backside were starting to pound with pain. Her legs had long ago fallen asleep, and she was pretty sure that her face was flushed from the exposure to the elements.

When she didn't answer, he rolled his eyes and sighed. She continued to stare at him, or to be more exact, squint at him. He twisted his own mouth in thought for a moment, but finally gave in and sat down beside her. He stretched his legs out in front of himself, hoping that maybe an innocent passerby could trip on them.

She slapped his arm, "Don't do that. People might get hurt."

He wrinkled his nose in reply, and waved a hand, "Ah, no they won't."

It was her turn to roll her eyes. She crossed her arms and studied her surroundings, ignoring the boy to her right, who was, in turn, studying her. Not willing to take the scrutiny anymore, she whipped her face at him angrily, "If you're going to sit there, will you at least stop looking at me? It's creepy."

She was only greeted with a smirk, a nod, and a small turn of the head. After a moment, he spoke again, in that lazy tone, "Cranky. In the process of doing something weird. Alone. Kind of bitter. Have a fight with your boyfriend?"

Her lip twitched more at the accuracy of his question than the invasiveness of it. She turned her head away once again, unwilling to look at the very rude boy to her right.

"That's answer enough."

The statement was like a pin to a balloon. Angry, she looked at him square in the eye. "You know, I don't like it when you're like this. Every time something goes wrong with him and me, you pop up out of nowhere and say something annoying. Normal people would try to be nice and say something to comfort me, maybe offer me food, but you; you just have to be a prick about this. You get that little gleam in your eye, like my misery is some kind of sick entertainment to you. And I don't like it, at all. So I would appreciate it if you just either keep quiet, or leave me alone."

To her surprise, she found him smiling at her. A full display of his teeth, a big curve of the edges of his lips. It startled her how much nicer he looked when he smiled like that. There was so mischief, no cockiness, and just all-out friendliness. Like a Care Bear. However, it disappeared as he hauled himself up to stand.

"All right, I'll leave."

She was squinting at him once again, but now, he was staring down at her with a blank look. "So it really isn't physically possible for you to just silently keep me company?"

"Do you want my company?" It was a baiting question, the shiny pink hook dangling in front of her face. And she knew that.

Taking on an uninterested expression, she carefully swept her head away from his face and offered him a dainty shrug. "It's a free country."

Again, he rolled his eyes at her, but with a slight feeling of amusement settling in his features. He bent down once again, and fell on the space to her right. He planted his hands behind his head and proceeded to lay on the ground fully, relaxed and silent.

"So…," she started, out of the blue.

"Shut up. You said you wanted silence, and I'm giving it to you. Why would you ruin that?" he asked from his position, his eyes closed in rest. He didn't even bother looking at her when he said that.

And so she kept quiet. She gathered her knees up in front of her and hugged them, pouting all the while. He always did this, bait her and then stick it to her later on. She glared at the boy to her right, wishing that he had never said anything in the first place.

Hmph.


	2. She Gets What She Wants

**She Gets What She Wants **by Oregano

She entered the diner without a word, and made her way towards the counter. He was leaning against it, his back to the entrance, entranced by the small book he held in his hands. He didn't hear the little bell tinkle.

"Aren't you supposed to be at school?" she asked with a disapproving glare.

He slowly turned around, pushed the book into his back pocket and smirked at her, all in one fluid motion. He perched his arms on the countertop, pushing his weight against them. "Why aren't you?"

She looked at him square in the eyes. "School holiday," she said almost proudly.

He closed his eyes for a second and gave her a slight nod. "Same here."

"Stars Hollow High never had any holidays during this month the whole time I went there," she snipped at him. She crossed her arms in front of her and furrowed her brow at him, but he didn't seem to mind her expression one bit.

He leaned closer to her to whisper, "Don't tell Luke--I need the extra cash."

She rolled her eyes. "For what?"

"What are you, the personification of my diary?" he shot back at her, his smirk still intact. "I'm not at liberty to say. Actually, I just don't want to say. So, what'll it be?" He grabbed an order pad and a pencil, poised to take her order down dutifully.

She glared at him, "Bacon cheeseburger with chilli fries and a cherry pie."

"Just so I'm direct about this: Ew," he said softly, as he wrote it down. When he was done, he ripped it off with a flourish and gave it to Caesar. Grabbing a coffeepot and a mug, he served her what the establishment was known for, thanks to her mother's word of mouth. He also poured it with a flourish, dipping the pot up and down when he was done. He grinned gallantly at her, as if pouring her coffee was the same as slaying a dragon. She just frowned at him.

"Get your books."

"Excuse me?" he asked, his tone matching his raised eyebrows.

"You heard me, rebel--get your damn books!" she said in a half-holler. If her gaze wasn't so amusing, he'd have thought it was challenging him to go to school. So she stood in front of him, blocked only by the counter, staring him down as if he would crack, which he would absolutely not do.

Her gaze intensified. Nope. He was not budging an inch.

Finally, she stretched over the counter and grabbed the front of his shirt with her fist and dragged him around the obstacle. "I can sue you for this, you know," he informed her with a small smirk. But she didn't seem to be paying attention to his words as she hauled him up the steps, pushing him up towards the apartment. When she finally managed to shove him in there, it was then she realised that she was alone. With him. In his apartment.

Not good.

She turned around and saw him grinning like a maniac at her. He leaned on a kitchen chair and nodded for her to proceed. "You didn't drag me up here for nothing, did you? Carry on with your bluster, please." He gave her a motion with his hand.

Very not good.

With shaking hands, she ventured towards his quarters, where all his stuff lay. "Good luck finding anything in there. The system only conforms to me, makes sense to me, and nobody else," he called from the kitchen. It was almost a singsong comment, and she didn't know if it angered her or made her more nervous. Wasn't there an MTV production like this? Where the girl busts out UV-ray machines to "check for specimen on the bed"? God, what the hell kind of television was she watching nowadays, anyway?

The search for his schoolbag proved futile, as she was pretty sure that he didn't really have one in the first place. She shook her head, as if to clear it and looked at him. "It's okay, no books then. But you're still going to school."

He materialised from behind the refrigerator carrying an apple and suddenly put on a schoolboy act. "But Ma'am, if I has no books, how's'll I learn all them brainstuffs?"

"Lane can be your book-buddy for today."

She watched him sort of grimace and then shake his head. "I don't think Lane's interested in being my buddy, book one or not."

She narrowed her eyes at him and asked, "Why is that?"

"I made an attempt at her locker combination the other day."

"Ah," she said, brightening up, "at least I know you've actually stepped foot in the campus."

He scoffed at her words. "You call that a campus? I call that a barn."

"It's quaint."

"The physics teacher is the Arts Department Head. That's not quaint, that's psychotic." He took a bite of the apple, all the while still staring at her. He knew it made her nervous, and to his evilness, used that information to his advantage. "I'm not going to school, so just stop trying. Your food's probably ready."

Conceding to his words with a slump of her shoulders, she ventured down to the diner behind him silently. "Where the hell is he, Caesar?" his uncle asked loudly from below. "He's supposed to be working today!"

As they came down, he saw them both. The man looked from them, to the stairs, to the apartment, and to them again. "You guys weren't...?"

"Oh, of course not!" she gushed, now embarrassed at what the situation looked like. When she said that, she saw him shift his gaze to the side, and his uncle breath a gigantic sigh of relief. This was awkward.

Suddenly, without warning, her mouth was open, and all syntaxes to her functioning common sense were cut. "Jess is ditching school to work for you today!" she cried quickly, her words almost tripping over one another. As she lay that information for everyone to take in, she saw his uncle's vein start throbbing.

There was a small pause, and then, "_What?!_" he yelled loud enough for glass to shatter. And then he went on this long, long diatribe about the importance of school and how he was not getting paid for any work that he was going to do for today, so he might as well go to school, God dammit.

As he stood there, squinting at his uncle's words that were slapping him in the face, his eyes shifted towards her in a leering fashion, but with an almost playful feeling behind it. She simply gave him her widest smile, walked around the counter, took her food and exited.


End file.
